ASPCA Pathos

The commercials for the ASPCA beckoning for the adoption of animals are visual arguments, that use some of the principles demonstrated in the Birdsell and Groarke article. The first principle used by the ASPCA in their commercials is the use of pathos. As Birdsell and Groarke mention, visual arguments rely heavily on pathos to forward their claims. The images of suffering animals conjure feelings of sympathy, anger, and guilt meant to elicit action on the part of the viewer. By simply reasoning with the viewer that animals are abused, the impact is reduced. The second principle that the ASPCA uses in its commercials that is mentioned in the Birdsell and Groarke article is the ineffectiveness of surrogate imagery. If the ASPCA used animals that were relatively well off and faked hardship -animal "actors" if you- then the impact would be greatly reduced as the viewer would know the images they were seeing were less then real, merely a simulacrum of the message.